• Chapter 10: As the Rain Falls


    --- 12 Years Ago, 25 Miles North East of Thelmios (Kratos Mountains) ---


    Kaneas falls down into a puddle of mud, a heavy rain beating down upon him. “Come on Boy! Are you going to give up that easily? You want revenge for what I did to your father don’t you?” a deep voice bellowed in the rain. “I’ll… I’ll KILL YOU!!” Kaneas pushes himself to his feet and summons a spear of Darkness at the man. The man holds out his palm and stops the magical spear with his mere hand. “That’s still not good enough. You’ll never be able to beat me until you can master the powers of Darkness, Boy. Your father would be real disappointed with you.” He shakes his head while laughing a bit at the young boy’s feeble attempts to use magic. A shroud of black mist covers the man and then immediately appears behind Kaneas. A hand appears from within the mist, knocking Kaneas on the back of the head hard, sending him unconscious. The man slowly emerges from the mist after Kaneas hits the ground. “I wonder why the great Terrus Lightfall had a son with the power of Darkness. Such a pity it is, seeing as this kid isn’t my own child. I would have raised him to be quite a merciless little killer.”

    He picks Kaneas up and the black mist shrouds him once more, but this time along with Kaneas in his grasp. The mist almost instantly appears in the front of a large house on the cliff of the mountain side, almost 2 miles away. He opens the door and drops Kaneas on the floor inside, soon after heading into the kitchen to make dinner. “Hmph, if your father wasn’t so kind and noble, he’d still be alive. I suppose that is what he gets for putting too much trust in his partner. Though, the fool was intelligent enough to hide his only son from me. I bet he knew if I found out his son had powers of Darkness that I’d try to steal him away and train him. It’s a shame that I’m only using this kid to unlock my full potential.” The man suddenly turns around, but all too late.

    “What!?” he gasps as Kaneas uses a sword of Darkness to slash the man. “Die… just die… JUST DIE!!” Kaneas screams as he looks at the man, who was now on the floor trying to grasp the situation. The man coughs up blood and looks at Kaneas. “Very good… I didn’t expect you to do that. It’s a shame you didn’t cut my head off first, because now I still have the chance to kill you too.” Kaneas’s eyes open widely as he begins to run. “You won’t be able to escape this one, Kaneas…” The man raises his left arm, the only one that was still attached after he had been cut diagonally by the dark magic Kaneas used, and begins to release a small black orb into the air. The man’s body is slowly shrouded by the black mist once more, including the severed limbs and blood on the floor. The orb begins to grow in size, rapidly expanding at an extraordinary rate. As Kaneas looks behind him at the house on the cliff side, the black orb emerges from within it, seeming as though it was pulling everything in its reach into an endless void. “No way… that’s… that’s insane!”

    The black void continued to expand even then, forcing Kaneas to jump off the cliff, praying that he could muster enough energy to lift himself into the air with his Air magic, or enshroud himself in the black mist technique that the man had used earlier. “Please… I need to find my brother! I can’t die here!” he shouted loudly, his voice echoing in the mountains. He closes his eyes and puts his hands together, trying to focus the remaining energy inside him. Almost 2 seconds before he would have hit the ground, a strong gust of wind pushes up at him from below, greatly slowing his fall and leaving him with only a few scratches on his arms and legs.

    The void begins to get closer to the foot of the mountain, as Kaneas stumbles to his feet and begins running once more. The void finally stops and slowly disappears, along with everything it enveloped, including a large portion of the Mountain. Kaneas turns and looks behind him, panting heavily from having run so much. His eyes were wide open, as he looked on in fear at where a large set of mountains was just at. “Insane… Maximus… Farien… The world is better left without your evil in it.”

    The Kratos Mountain range was, only moments ago, one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. The mountain range was also incredibly beautiful, filled with lush forest and snow near the peaks. It was divided into 6 sections, and each section covered about 45 miles across the land, at various elevations. The sections were numbered in order of their average elevation. The highest elevated section was not a place where anyone could actually live at, since it was well above 11,000 feet and by far the tallest section of the entire mountain range. It was actually believe that the Elementals and Gods themselves actually lived on that section of the mountain. The rest of the mountain was actually no longer there anymore. It had been turned into a gigantic crater. In the tallest section of the mountain, there was a crescent shaped crater in the side of it, easily noticeable from afar, being that it used to be a much wider mountain range.

    “I can’t believe that much of the mountains are just gone now…” Kaneas fell down onto his knees and slowly collapsed from exhaustion. The heavy rain continued to beat down on the area around him, drenching him in water completely from head to toe. Several hours later, Kaneas finally opened his eyes, but the rain was still going on. It was almost as if to say that the Earth was crying for the loss of the large mountain range and all its beauty. “Achoo!” Kaneas sneezes loudly and wipes his nose. “Dang it… I’m going to get sick if I stay here any longer.” He stands up and looks around for a moment before running towards the direction of the local town. After running for over 2 hours, he finally came upon a house in the middle of a forest. There was a young man, or at least it looked like a young man, outside the house looking at the Kratos mountain range.

    The man was wearing a white mask that completely covered his except his mouth and chin. His clothing appeared as if it was something worn by a martial artist fighter, who favored speed over strength because of its loose and flexible qualities. The clothing itself was all blue, and his boots were black with a shiny black metal plated over the outside. On his arms was a similar colored metal plated over a pair of black gloves and a wrist band. The wrist band however, looked as though it carried a long sharp blade inside it, ready to be extended at its owner’s whim. Around the man’s neck was a long, blue and purple scarf that seemed to glimmer like a set of jewels would in light.

    Kaneas runs over to the man, panting heavily. “Please sir… Can I trouble you for a place to escape this rain?” The man looks at Kaneas for a moment. “First you tell me what happened to the Kratos mountain range.” Kaneas slowly nods. “It was Maximus Farien… He had kidnapped me about 5 years ago and brought me there, forcing me to train under him. I overheard him talking about using me in order to find a way to unlock his full potential… That b*****d killed my father. I surprised him from behind and cut him in half, but he released a spell after that. The spell he released engulfed the mountain entirely… I almost didn’t get away from it in time.” The man puts his hand on Kaneas’s head. “You must be Kaneas Lightfall. The Dark son of Terrus. Maximus Farien eh… this is quite interesting. What do you say you train under me instead? I can assure you that Farien is not yet dead to this world.”

    Kaneas looks up at the man in surprise. “But… I killed him, he should be dead. I saw him bleeding from his cuts with my own eyes!” The man shakes his head slowly. “Maximus Farien is a Dark Lord, and he is capable of regenerating his body over time. Though if you cut him like you say, it may take quite a while for him to do so.” Kaneas clenches his fist. “I’ll train under you then. If it helps me kill that murderer, I’ll do anything. Since you already know my name… I guess there’s-“The man interrupts Kaneas quickly. “Hark. Just call me Hark. For now, you should come in and get something to eat; you will need energy to train with me.” Hark turns around and walks into the house. As Kaneas enters the house he instantly notices the warmth of the house, and the delicious smell of stew coming from the stove in the kitchen. “Have a set at the table; I’ll bring you a bowl of stew. You’re lucky; I just finished making it too.” Hark walks into the kitchen and comes out with two bowls of stew, setting one down in front of Kaneas and one for himself. “I hope you’re not sick tomorrow from being out there in that rain for so long. Tomorrow we begin training.”